Peeps at Heraldry

by Phoebe Allen

Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4.

The several points of a shield have each their respective names, and serve as landmarks for locating the exact position of the different figures charged on the field. (In describing a shield, you must always think of it as being worn by yourself, so that in looking at a shield, right and left become reversed, and what appears to you as the right side is really the left, and vice versa.)

Fig. 5.

In Fig. 5, A, B, C, mark the chief—i.e., the highest and most honourable point of the shield—A marking the dexter chief or upper right-hand side of the shield, B the middle chief, and C the sinister or left-hand side of the chief. E denotes the fess point, or centre; G, H, and I, mark the base of the shield—G and I denoting respectively the dexter and sinister sides of the shield, and H the middle base. After the points of a field, come the tinctures, which give the colour to a coat of arms, and are divided into two classes. The first includes the two metals, gold and silver, and the five colours proper—viz., blue, red, black, green, purple. In heraldic language these tinctures are described as "or," "argent" (always written arg:), "azure" (az:), "gules" (gu:),[³] "sable" (sa:), "vert," and "purpure." According to Guillim, each tincture was supposed to teach its own lesson—e.g., "as gold excelleth all other metals in value and purity, so ought its bearer to surpass all others in prowess and virtue," and so on.

[3:] This term for red is thought to be derived either from the Hebrew gulude, a bit of red cloth, or from the Arabic, gulu, a rose.

In the seventeenth century one Petrosancta introduced the system of delineating the tinctures of the shield by certain dots and lines, in the use of which we have a good example of how heraldry can dispense with words. Thus pin-prick dots represent or (Fig. 6); a blank surface, argent (Fig. 7); horizontal lines, azure (Fig. 8); perpendicular, gules (Fig. 9); horizontal and perpendicular lines crossing each other, sable (Fig. 10); diagonal lines running from the dexter chief to the sinister base, vert (Fig. 11); diagonal lines running in an opposite direction, purpure (Fig. 12).

Fig. 6.—Or.Fig. 7.—Arg.Fig. 8.—Az. Fig. 9.—Gu.